How to Simplify Workday Implementation

Written by Toonimo

Workday offers a robust solution in human capital management, financial management applications ETC. Workday’s solution could potentially empower the HR and financial management in growing companies. Being one of the first SaaS companies, Workday is known for their solid implementation integration plan. From vast experience, it is known how important it is to have a flawless implementation plan in order to maximize investments and get the most out of the platform. The following post will elaborate on what to avoid and what product managers should pay attention to.

Working Together

A big problem a lot of companies are constantly dealing with when integrating Workday is that they don’t fully utilize the software. Workday can interact with many functional areas within companies that are not taken advantage of. In most cases there is organizational issues within the company. Many team members are not fully educated so they don't fully understand the functionalities of Workday on a deeper level.
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A tip for future Workday clients, in order to achieve a seamless implementation each team member should be assigned a role. Establish from the beginning the amount of hours required from each team member that includes training courses, extra commitment and long hours.

This will allow team members to work more efficiently and prevent late deadlines. Working together is the key in order to create a successful implementation. In addition, workday has a policy that forces customers to purchase training credits as part of the implementation processes, use it wisely, assemble free time for team members to use the training credits and to get a better understanding of the platform.

Document Complicated Processes

A Lot of companies tend to forget the complications of the implementation process, Workday is quite difficult to comprehend. They don’t take into account the overload of information nor do they take the time to document the steps needed to configure Workday, therefore when team members are lost they have nothing to help guide them.

When the product manager's create the implementation for the platform, it is important to document complicated processes, therefore this information will be available to everyone. It doesn’t matter if the change is big or small; log it with a list of reasons why. For example The product manager changes positions or leaves the company, with interactive onboarding tools the substitute can learn how to run the platform very quickly with the whole process located online in the “support knowledge bar”. External to the widget critical data should be documented this can help give the company a better understanding of strategies that can be used for future reference.

Plan Ahead

Companies who utilize Workday have the tendency to shift when they don’t make their initial deadline. They end up postponing their implementation due to the fact that they neglected certain areas of the work stream, such as reporting and training. This can create large amount of pressure on employees as well as the company's reputation.
We recommend the companies who use Workday to plan ahead of time meaning setting goals and dates. Make sure every sector of the implementation team is taken care of. Provide extra attention to the technical team, make sure they understand what has to be done, make it a priority to reach the initial goal.

Self-Sufficient Implementation

Another reason why companies fail at reaching deadlines in a short amount of time is due to the fact that they use external merchants to create and build integration systems. This can create an enormous gap of organizational design and transformation of important data that can put the implementation at risk.

Our advice is to establish from early on a knowledgeable integration plan. Employ a team of experts to be responsible for modifying and running the integrations accordingly. It’s important to be proactive and to set requirements, especially in the area of data, conversion and validation.
In addition, when recruiting a partner to run the implementation integration, look for individuals who have good recommendations from other companies. The cost for an expert who knows the job description is worth the extra fee; make sure the new partner works with the same amount of users as your company, not less. Get the new partner to come to the office on a regularly basis, build a list of business scenarios / case studies that need to be automated into Workday integrations before starting projects. Planning ahead is the best way of avoiding problems.

Real Time Support

Today’s market offers many advanced options for online onboarding and supporting tools. This helps companies streamline the implementation and training process of new platforms similar to Workday, which also offers real time support for each new user.
An Example is Toonimo; Toonimo utilizes a real human voice for guidance with an interactive step-by-step walkthrough. Those tools help corporate companies to implement and adopt new software’s. With Toonimo companies could personalize and customize a guidance plan. Furthermore, each job title could have an automated customized plan tailored to the specified professional field.

See example below for an interactive onboarding plan:

Refresh The Data

A recurring error that companies construct when operating the Workday system is that they don’t refresh the data. This can create deeper issues in the functionality and the level of proficiency in the implementation. It can cause the loading time to become very time-consuming. The implementation system is only as decent as the information stored in it. It’s the responsibility of the team leader to decide on how to employ Workday.
We strongly recommend companies who utilize Workday to always refresh the data and eliminate additional information. In addition, to filter the data that is no longer needed on a monthly basis.

The Testing Process

When using Workday’s implementation for the first time, there can be high risks involved. The capabilities and functionalities of the software can be difficult to understand from the setup. Instead of relying on standard test and scenarios, build a Workday scenario in order for the system to take into account all the complexities of the organization.
In order to avoid future errors, we suggest companies to test the implementations multiple times, involve all resources and technical functionalities. Even if the final version is perceived as perfect, test it again. There may be additional issues in the functionalities that were ignored. This occurs frequently since a lot of companies are on a tight deadline therefore they go live without perfecting their implementations.

Post-Streaming

Unfortunately, Companies don’t prioritize the potential issues that recur post live streaming. In many organizations, there are no regulated team members that work together post live steam to ensure that everything is running smoothly. Coordination is the key factor for teams to respond to any volume of tickets, which enables quick resolution and happy customers.
We cannot stress enough how important it is for product managers and the developers to prioritize quick response to issues that occur post live streaming. It is recommended to plan in advance and always be active leading up to the live stream.

Lessons Learned

Overall Workday has proven its efficiency in helping companies, optimize resources, embrace changes, operate with complete pictures and engaged users. Furthermore, based on our research and experience getting the technical team involved with the Workday Implementation from day one is the best practice. However, it is clear that a lot of companies are having issues in regards to how to utilize Workday to it’s fullest.
It is very important for the whole team to work together as a group and to educate new team members. We strongly recommend systemizing; it’s the key to success under any circumstance.

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